Arizona To Hold Referendum On Tax Increase for Schools

After seeing her $445 million education plan shot down and
resurrected more than once in a rancorous battle with conservative
lawmakers, Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull has emerged with a victory that
will let the state's voters decide the proposal's fate this fall.

Ms. Hull, a Republican, signed a measure late last month that
guarantees her plan a spot on the statewide ballot in November,
following a 23-day special legislative session on education and health
care. The House voted 44-13 to pass the governor's plan, and the Senate
followed suit with a 23-5 vote.

"This is a landmark day for Arizona," Gov. Hull declared on June 28
after the votes. "We addressed two of the biggest issues in the state
and passed both with an overwhelming majority. I believe we will look
back on today's action and see we made a major difference for the
people of Arizona."

Her proposal, which calls for a six-tenths of 1 percent sales-tax
increase to generate new money for the state education budget,
triumphed over the staunch opposition of conservative Republicans in
the legislature. The opposition was particularly fierce in the House,
where Speaker Jeff Groscost was pushing his own education funding plan,
minus a tax increase. ("Ariz.
Lawmakers Reconvene To Tackle School Finance," June 14, 2000.)

The Groscost faction killed the governor's plan twice, only to see
it brought back to life by a majority coalition of Democrats and
moderate Republicans that defeated some 50 attempts to amend their bill
on the House floor. The same coalition also defeated the House
speaker's plan, prompting many of the Republicans who had spent weeks
fighting the governor to switch their vote in the final hour.

One of those lawmakers, Rep. Linda J. Gray, said she changed her
mind mainly because she believed Arizonans should have the final word
on any tax increase. "There are a few good things in this plan," she
said, but she believes it falls far short of meeting the state's
educational needs.

As a parting shot, Mr. Groscost released an analysis by the
legislature's joint budget committee predicting the programs in the
governor's plan would cost roughly $1.6 billion over 10 years, while
the sales-tax increase would raise only $772 million over that same
period.

Odds at the Ballot Box

With the legislative battle behind her, Gov. Hull and her supporters
are now looking toward November's referendum. Some polls have showed
strong public support for the measure, but a few observers cautioned
that nothing is certain.

"The problem is that the ballot is going to be really full, and the
initial concern is that people will be confused," said Mary Jo Waits,
the acting director of the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at
Arizona State University in Tempe. "But I'm going to give voters credit
for being smarter than we might think they are."

Jennie Drage, a policy analyst with the Denver-based National
Conference of State Legislatures, agreed that predicting the fate of
any single ballot question is difficult. But "ballot fatigue" is a
common phenomenon, she said, when voters must decide on a large number
of measures.

"When you have a crowded ballot, that's a lot of information to take
in, which means voters are likely to vote only on the measures they
feel they understand or have been exposed to," Ms. Drage said. "The
other factor that comes into play is that when voters are unsure or
haven't heard enough about a measure, they tend to stick with the
status quo and vote no."

But members of the governor's staff are betting on the various
groups that originally backed her plan—including a coalition of
business interests and the state teachers' union—to help
publicize it in the coming months.

"It's going to be an interesting campaign because we believe the
state's business interests are really going to take the lead on this,"
said Jaime Molera, Ms. Hull's executive assistant for education. "We've
already had a number of prominent CEOs step up and say they will do
whatever it takes."

A Higher Profile?

The bill passed by the legislature contained all of the elements of
the governor's original plan, which was unveiled in March.

Under her proposal, 85 percent, or $389 million per year, of the new
revenue would be spent on K-12 education; the remaining 15 percent, or
$56 million, would go to colleges and universities. ("Arizona Leaders Urge Tax Hike for
Education," April 5, 2000.)

Of the K-12 dollars, 40 percent would be used for performance-based
pay raises for teachers, and 20 percent for an increase in base pay.
Districts could use the remaining money to finance such as efforts as
class-size reduction, teacher training, and tutoring of students for
the state graduation test.

The bill also includes provisions that would prevent the legislature
and school districts from using the money to cut back on education
spending in other areas.

The legislature would have to increase funding by 2 percent a year,
unless the annual growth rate of the gross domestic product were lower
than that. In that case, funding would rise at the rate of GDP growth.
And districts would be prohibited from supplanting local contributions
to their budgets with new money they received from the state.

Gov. Hull's plan aims to raise Arizona's national standing on
education funding. In most rankings, including an analysis by
Education Week for Quality Counts
2000, Arizona falls at or near the bottom of the 50 states on
school aid. (See "Arizona's
Report Card.")

"We moved forward in making a necessary supplemental investment in
education with specific accountability measures," Ms. Hull said. "I
look forward to waging a vigorous campaign this fall to make sure
voters truly understand the importance of a 'yes' vote."

Vol. 19, Issue 42, Page 25

Published in Print: July 12, 2000, as Arizona To Hold Referendum On Tax Increase for Schools

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